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Georgia Gives Police Added Power to Seek Out Illegal Immigrants

ATLANTA — Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia on Friday signed into law one of the nation’s toughest immigration measures, empowering local police officers to question certain suspects about their immigration status.

The law is similar to measures in Arizona and Utah that have drawn legal challenges and economic boycotts. Mr. Deal, a Republican, said he would have preferred a comprehensive immigration overhaul from the federal government.

“Illegal immigration is a complex and troublesome issue, and no state alone can fix it,” he said. “We will continue to have a broken system until we have a federal solution. In the meantime, states must act to defend their taxpayers.”

The law takes effect July 1. Already, civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, say they are considering lawsuits against Georgia. Business groups, including the state Chamber of Commerce, have raised fears that the law will diminish tourism. In Arizona and Utah, court injunctions have delayed carrying out the laws while their constitutionality is determined.

One of the Georgia law’s authors, Matthew L. Ramsey, a Republican state legislator, said the measure was written to withstand legal challenges. Lawmakers set clear guidelines on when the police are allowed to request a suspect’s immigration status, he said. The law allows state and local police officers to request immigration documentation from criminal suspects and, if they do not receive it, to take the suspects to jails, where federal officials could begin the deportation process.

“States don’t have the legal authority to deport. We don’t have the legal authority to secure our borders,” Mr. Ramsey said. "But our goal is, within a constitutional framework, to eliminate incentives for illegal aliens to cross into our state."

The law also creates stricter requirements for businesses hiring workers and harsher punishments for anyone who harbors or employs an illegal immigrant. There are 425,000 illegal immigrants in Georgia, the seventh most of any state, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates. Two other Southern states, Alabama and South Carolina, are also considering similar immigration bills that are expected by many experts to pass this year.

Tom Smith, a finance professor at Emory University, said Georgia businesses were bracing for the impact. Some studies suggest that that Arizona’s law has cost the state as much as $250 million in convention business, he said.

“People are looking at the history in Arizona and thinking, ‘Could a law in Georgia could have the same impact?’ ” Professor Smith said. “We’re waiting to see whether that will happen in Georgia now.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 14, 2011, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Georgia Gives Police Added Power to Seek Out Illegal Immigrants. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe